Real Traps-Mondo Traps

[mtrycrafts]

The current issue of The $ensible Sound, no 114, has two interesting articles on room acoustics by Dr. David Rich.
The First measures the effectiveness of the subject traps, and mentions related issues.
The second reviews tests, and talks about the Audyssey EQ. A good issue to buy, or read in the store.

 

[kiwiaudionut]

Real traps worth the cost ?

I've been reading about the Real Traps products too. Man thats expensive stuff, but their website does a great job of selling you. They get rave reviews too.
Personally, I would love to know whats in those things so I could build my own facsimile of such.
My friend says they are full of egg cartons ! - Me thinks NOT !

 

[WmAx]

I've been reading about the Real Traps products too. Man thats expensive stuff, but their website does a great job of selling you. They get rave reviews too.
Personally, I would love to know whats in those things so I could build my own facsimile of such.
My friend says they are full of egg cartons ! - Me thinks NOT !

Most of the products are made from stock Owens Corning 705 fiberglass panels as the core functional medium.

You can use 8# mineral wool board to the same effect -- but much lower in cost. Make sure the cloth you use is acoustically transparent, or it will not allow treble to pass through in order to absorb treble effectively.

These materials are commonly available from commercial/industrial insulation contractors.

-Chris

 

[FguerraG]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3067566258802658704


Just add a nice frame and you are set

 

[Glenn Kuras]

I've been reading about the Real Traps products too. Man thats expensive stuff, but their website does a great job of selling you. They get rave reviews too.
Personally, I would love to know whats in those things so I could build my own facsimile of such.
My friend says they are full of egg cartons ! - Me thinks NOT !

I have seen Ethan's (Real Traps) products first hand and I can tell you that there is not any egg cartons in them.

Glenn

 

[scottdru]

Plain rigid fiberglass works okay, but is not equivalent to what RealTraps sells. RealTraps uses 705 rigid fiberglass which absorbs more at bass
frequencies than mineral wool (and costs four times more). There's also limp mass membrane behind the front fabric which further increases bass absorption, while being semi-reflective at mid and high frequencies. This lets you put enough of them in a room to truly solve the bass problems, but without killing all the mids and highs as happens with plain fiberglass or mineral wool or foam. Also, rigid fiberglass does not shed and turn into fine dust particles as does mineral wool, nor does it sag over time and get lumpy. This is especially important when panels are hung from the ceiling.

The curve of absorption versus frequency in MiniTraps and MondoTraps is intentional and very specific. So while you can definitely make an
improvement with almost any absorber, that doesn't mean you'll get the same or even similar results when viewed as a system. Besides the $ensible Sound review, MondoTraps just received Stereophile magazine's Accessory of the Year award.


-------------------------
Scott Veenstra
Acoustics Consultant
RealTraps

 

[scottdru]

Man thats expensive stuff,

I always find it ironic when people go out and spend thousands and tens of thousands on their electronic gear, speakers, cables, power conditioners, etc., and then they balk at spending even a thousand or two on acoustics treatments.

Even with a bog standard, off the shelf mass market crapola system in almost every case the room acoustics is ALWAYS the weakest link. Serious acoustical problems are a mathematical certainty in ANY small room (such as those of a size found in most houses or apartments, and indeed most anything smaller than a decent sized concert hall). It's simply a matter of physics.

ALL small rooms have low frequency room mode issues (not to mention non-modal peaks and nulls caused by comb filtering). These room modes will cause numerous peaks and dips across the entire frequency response of the room that are often as much as 30 to 35 dB from top to bottom. In addition to that, decay times in the low frequency range will be EXTREMELY uneven, with certain frequencies ringing well beyond the time the note being played ends. This means that ALL small rooms need broadband bass trapping in achieve anything close to an accurate frequency response. You may have a system that has a ruler flat frequency response from DC all the way to microwaves, but if your room has peaks and dips of 10, 20, 30 dB at various frequencies (or frequency bands) at your listening position, you are certainly not going to hear anything close to a flat frequency response.

What happens, however, is that our ears become accustomed to certain things, and our brain will adjust a certain amount to sort of ignore or compensate for them -- but that doesn't mean the problem goes away, it's just that we don't notice them as much.

Also, when it comes to very narrow band nulls that occur at various points in the room, these are often not readily identified from just listening to music in your room. But, when you actually get at least something close to an appropriate amount of bass trapping in your room, that is when you start to hear what it is that you were really missing! And THAT is when you start to REALLY hear the benefits of the thousands of dollars you have invested in a high end system.

So sinking 10 grand or more into a system and playing it in a small room with no acoustics treatment is tantamount to buying all high end gear and then buying some cheap Sony, Cerwin Vega, Bose or whatever bulls**t speakers from Wild Willie's Discount Stereo Emporium to play it all through. Seriously.

If you don't believe me, try to remember the last time you moved a system to a completely different room and wondered why your gear sounded so incredibly different when you move it to the new room.

Most people don't realise this, in large part because very few people have had the opportunity to listen to their gear in an optimal acoustical environment (except, perhaps, if the store they purchased their gear from has had their showroom designed with proper acoustics treatment built in. But, in those cases, people almost always get their system home and find it doesn't sound the same way it did in the showroom, and usually it doesn't sound nearly as good.

For the reasons mentioned above, a LOT of people (including many professional audio engineers) don't "hear" the bass issues in their rooms until they get an appropriate amount of bass trapping in their room. To be honest, if I had a dollar for every person who has come to me saying they didn't think they had any bass problems in their room (and who in the end discovered that putting bass traps in their room made a huge difference), I would be a rather wealthy man by now!

I could also tell you some stories about the time I went into a certain multi-platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated Hip Hop producer's studio to assess it for treatment. When I first went in, he explained to me that he figured it could probably be improved, but he really didn't hear any major bass issues in his control room . . . To the contrary, I heard them the second I walked in. When I was done treating his studio, he was literally jumping for joy . . . he was hearing so much that he had never heard before. And, as a result, he went back and remixed an entire CDs' worth of material that he was shopping around to record labels. His production quality was good before we treated his studio, and he had become used to compensating. But, after I treated his studio, I heard some things on the radio that he had produced, and the overall depth and clarity of his mixes were immensely improved . . . like night and day. There was so much more of a sense of dimension (both side to side and back to front) in the sound stage of his productions.

And that is the kind of improvement you will get in your listening room as well when you put a reasonable amount of acoustics treatment in the room. I can tell you that an investment in proper acoustics treatment will offer you EXPONENTIALLY greater improvement in what you are hearing from your system than similar amount of investment in upgrading speakers, amps, preamps, CD players, turntables, speaker cables, interconnects or power conditioners.

And, while I do indeed do acoustics consulting and sell acoustics treatment for a living at this particular time in my life, I can tell you that my statements above come not from a "sales" perspective, but rather from many years of experience as a professional musician (including work with some of the best of the best in the industry), having played in hundreds and hundreds of different venues throughout the world (and in pretty much every acoustical environment you can imagine), and also from years of experience as a professional recording and live sound reinforcement engineer, as well as having a fair amount of experience with high end audiophile gear. So I have been advising people along those lines for YEARS before I ever started working in the acoustics industry.

So . . . to sum it up . . . while the price of RealTraps panels may SEEM expensive, believe me, for the money you invest and the incredible amounts of improvement you get out of your investment, the cost of treating your room with RealTraps panels is a PITTANCE in comparison to other upgrades most people make.

Further, RealTraps panels are built to a VERY high quality standard, and are used in many high end recording studios and commercial installations throughout the world (including a number of top studios that record and mix the CDs and film sound tracks you listen to on your systems). They are built to last for many years to come, even under the kinds of abuse they might suffer when used in a commercial recording studio or other commercial installation, and they also carry a Class A fire rating. These are broadband panels -- not tuned traps. As a result, you can expect to keep RealTraps panels for a lifetime, and you will use them in any room that you might move to in the future. I think that people often forget that these are not throw-away products. They are a lifetime investment. And, if you've ever tried to find RealTraps panels to purchase second hand, you'll find them pretty difficult to find. When people purchase our panels, they hold on to them, because they really work, and they work very well.



-------------------------
Scott Veenstra
Acoustics Consultant
RealTraps

 

[scottdru]

I have seen Ethan's (Real Traps) products first hand and I can tell you that there is not any egg cartons in them.

Glenn

And, since I'm here and Glenn is too modest to say it . . .

I've seen Glenn's traps too, and I can assure you that there are indeed no egg cartons in his traps either. And they are indeed very effective bass traps.

I guess I want to make it very clear that I'm not just saying the stuff I said in my previous posts to try to convince people to buy RealTraps. Indeed, when it comes to properly balanced acoustics treatment with broadband/bass trapping, the things I've said below about the degree of improvement that can be achieved in your listening experience (especially in comparison to equal investments in other gear) most definitely apply (to varying degrees, of course, depending on quantity, quality and implementation, etc.) whether you are buying panels from RealTraps or GIK, or from other reputable vendors, or if you are building your own broadband panels from 703, 705 or the mineral wool equivalents.

I most definitely prefer the way the RealTraps panels affect the overall sound in the room (due to specific aspects of the design implementation) to any other broadband panels I've used over the years, but my main point is that broadband/bass trapping is simply the best, most effective, and indeed most cost-effective way to address the acoustical issues in small rooms. And this is something that affects what you hear from your system in your listening room FAR more than any of your gear.

And by far the vast majority of people do not understand just how incredibly critical a part of your overall *system* this really is.


-------------------------
Scott Veenstra
Acoustics Consultant
RealTraps

 

[mtrycrafts]

I've been reading about the Real Traps products too. Man thats expensive stuff, but their website does a great job of selling you. They get rave reviews too.
Personally, I would love to know whats in those things so I could build my own facsimile of such.
My friend says they are full of egg cartons ! - Me thinks NOT !

You should read this issue then
Room acoustics is where it is at. And, it isn't cheap as it isn't just slapped together and hope for the best. There is some research behind this.
The author mentions the spring Stereophile show in Manhattan. Rives Audio used RPG products to bring one room to some standard. It was almost $9k for that RPG stuff.
He also mentioned how this Real Trap was 1/3 what the RPG costs and is almost as good.

 

[WmAx]

Plain rigid fiberglass works okay, but is not equivalent to what RealTraps sells. RealTraps uses 705 rigid fiberglass which absorbs more at bass
frequencies than mineral wool (and costs four times more).

Do you have data compare plain 705 vs. 8# mineral board of the same thickness in the same lab under identical conditions?

From what I can tell, GIK acoustics uses standard 8# mineral board. The traps, at a compared thickness to equivalent thickness 705, absorb about the same amount, relative to frequency and thickness in the same mount, based on cross referencing various lab tests. Seems that the difference is very small between the two materials, while the cost difference is relatively large.

There's also limp mass membrane behind the front fabric which further increases bass absorption,

Yes; a membrane of sufficient properties seems to act as an impedance matching mechanism, transferring energy more effectively to the fiber, resulting in greater absorption at low frequencies, at least within a specific target band. One can use the faced (FRK) version of the 705 OC to this effect, or adhere a membrane to non-faced material to the same effect. I would suspect that specific mass/density/pliability membranes could be used to target specific bands to an extent in a custom application, though I am not in possession of the required data to know how to target a specific band mathematically. But trial and error could be used - albeit less efficiently - to find a desired custom application membrane. If you have this data and would like to share it - it would be appreciated. However, I understand if it is confidential in order to protect Real Traps designs.

-Chris

 

[Glenn Kuras]

Also, rigid fiberglass does not shed and turn into fine dust particles as does mineral wool, nor does it sag over time and get lumpy. This is especially important when panels are hung from the ceiling.

When working with mineral wool you do need to make a frame for it, as we do. But Scott PEASE do not go around saying that it would shed and turn into find dust particles. Come on man we all get along so there is no need to be slapping around other products. OK?



Glenn

 

[scottdru]

Do you have data compare plain 705 vs. 8# mineral board of the same thickness in the same lab under identical conditions?

From what I can tell, GIK acoustics uses standard 8# mineral board. The traps, at a compared thickness to equivalent thickness 705, absorb about the same amount, relative to frequency and thickness in the same mount, based on cross referencing various lab tests. Seems that the difference is very small between the two materials, while the cost difference is relatively large.

Hi Chris. I think you are quite right on that, actually. I apologise for my misstatement on that one. To be honest, I posted that when I was a bit of a hurry, and I used some old "boilerplate text" I had lying around. (It helps to make things more efficient, especially when things get extremely busy, to use boiler plate text on occasion for certain questions you find yourself answering many times a day, day in and day out, in the course of your work. I often use various bits of boilerplate as a starting point and edit it as needed to give more individualised answers, etc.).

In this case, I was quite rushed, and I was careless in editing, and it came out saying something different from what I had intended to say -- I kinda mashed a couple of different things together there.

Yes, the fiberglass and mineral wool of equivalent density will perform very similarly (perhaps only subtle differences that would be largely inconsequential in the large scheme of things).

Most people use the OC 703 fiberglass or equivalent density mineral wool.

I was actually trying to say a couple of things:

FIRST:

We use the higher density stuff, which, in certain applications (e.g., when straddled across corners or floating off the wall with spacers), exhibits some different physical behaviours that help with bass absorption in addition to the core absorptive qualities of the fiberglass itself. When measured in an ASTM certified reverb room lying flat on the floor with solid metal barriers around the edges of the panels (to take the "edge effect" out of the equation) 703 and 705 show a very similar absorption curve indeed. But, with certain implementation, the 705 actually seems to exhibit a *certain* amount of behaviour acting in and of itself somewhat like a large, damped membrane -- this is also helped by the limp mass membrane that we use across the face of the panels.

The 703 probably does this to a certain degree too, but the 705 seems to exhibit this behaviour in a more pronounced manner. Unfortunately, it's difficult to get any real comparative data on exactly how much of this "membrane" behaviour is coming into play with the various raw panels, because there isn't really a quantifiable way to test it at this point (at least not that I know of).

In the end, all we really have to work with is overall effect on the standard test results of the end product in implementation, and mounted in certain ways, and to observe certain things about the physical behaviour of the traps when they are being used in certain ways, etc. So some of this is largely theoretical -- a known phenomenon (to a certain degree), but it's difficult (and perhaps impossible) to isolate from the effects of the other physical behavious of the panels to get any kind of reliable test data.

Also, another reason I prefer (based on my own experience, including BEFORE I took the job with RealTraps) the overall sonic results in the room with the RealTraps panels, as opposed to other panels I have used over the years, is the way the design deals with the actual geometry of the ways sound travels throughout a room.

The face of the panels (with the membrane) are largely reflective in the high and mid frequency range, but the rear surfaces and edge surfaces (which do NOT have the membrane) are fully absorptive in the high and mid frequency range. This allows for just the right amount of control of the problematic reflections, but it still allows for the room to have some ambiance. My personal experience is that this design really leaves you with a very musical sounding room, and indeed much more so than using an equivalent amount of plain fiberglass or mineral wool panels.

SECOND:

It is a known fact that mineral wool doesn't "age" as nicely as the fiberglass.

(Sorry, Glenn, but this is indeed the truth! And my comments were not at all aimed at you or your products, since I was addressing the questions as to whether or not the RealTraps were "worth the cost", and also the differences between RealTraps panels and DIY panels. I didn't come here to attack your products or anyone else's products. This is indeed a thread about RealTraps products, so I hope you don't mind if I address it, thanks. )

It is true indeed that comparably specified mineral wool is a lot cheaper than the OC 703 or 705. So, price/performance-wise, mineral wool is a great option for acoustic treatment if cost is a primary concern.

HOWEVER . . . there is a reason that Ethan and Doug chose OC 705 to build RealTraps panels instead of the mineral wool equivalent. They wanted to build panels not only perform well acoustically, but that would tolerate abuse (from shipping, being moved around, or being bumped up against over a period of years by musicians, house guests, rambunctious children, etc.), and will still look great many years down the line.

This is a very important aspect of RealTraps product development. And we've even changed certain aspects of our products designs (as well as our packing designs) over the years even based on just making sure they stand up to the abuse these kinds of things are likely experience in shipping.

So . . . the point is . . . there are definitely reasons for RealTraps being the price they are, and they are STILL not remotely as expensive as products from companies like ASC and RPG.

We certainly could have chosen to use mineral wool in the RealTraps panels, and then maybe we could have sold them cheaper . . . or maybe Ethan would actually be able to pay me something closer to what I'm worth!

Yes; a membrane of sufficient properties seems to act as an impedance matching mechanism, transferring energy more effectively to the fiber, resulting in greater absorption at low frequencies, at least within a specific target band. One can use the faced (FRK) version of the 705 OC to this effect, or adhere a membrane to non-faced material to the same effect.

Yes, the FRK can indeed be used to similar effect. But it is not quite as good as the proprietary membrane we use in our traps.

But trial and error could be used - albeit less efficiently - to find a desired custom application membrane. I

Yes, and of course that kind of R&D is part of the reason you pay a bit more for RealTraps than you do if you build your own and have to go through all of that trial and error yourself.

If you have this data and would like to share it - it would be appreciated. However, I understand if it is confidential in order to protect Real Traps designs.

Heh . . . yeah . . . sorry, I can't really give out that much proprietary information. I mean . . . Ethan has freely given out SOOOO much information about the materials and design of our panels . . . FAR more than most any other manufacturer would. And indeed he's had other startup companies copy his ideas (albeit rather poorly) and then go into competition with RealTraps, undercutting prices, etc. and even going so far as to follow him all over the net trying to libel him and his products, etc. (not Glenn, by the way!!!!).

Maybe somebody could contact Audyssy and see if they'll give out some plans and help them build their own DIY version of the Audyssy! I mean . . . if people feel they simply MUST have that kind of DSP/EQ in their system, maybe they could save enough by building their own that they could actually afford to buy some proper bass traps (which will actually do a lot MORE for you than the Audyssy)!

 

[scottdru]

When working with mineral wool you do need to make a frame for it, as we do. But Scott PEASE do not go around saying that it would shed and turn into find dust particles. Come on man we all get along so there is no need to be slapping around other products. OK?

Glenn, I didn't even remotely come here to pick a fight with you or to slap around your products! I came here because there were questions about RealTraps products that I wanted to address -- check the thread title, and notice that the thread is NOT about GIK products, so I don't understand why you are choosing to make one small thing I said into something all about you.

To be honest, Glenn, I have to tell you I really resent the implication, because I don't think I've given you any reason (now, or in the past on various forums or when we've hung out in person) to believe that I came here to take a swipe at your products. And, as you well know (or should know by now), I abhor the business practice (as engaged by some in this business) of running around gratuitously slamming competitors' products.

Your products were not mentioned at all, other than to say there are no egg crates in your panels either, and to make it clear that what I'm saying about the importance of proper broadband/bass trapping applies to your products and those from other reputable vendors. I didn't have to say that, but I did.

HOWEVER, just to clarify my statements further, the fact that mineral wool does tend to break down a bit more (or in different ways) over time than does fiberglass, I want to make it clear that this isn't something that's likely to be leaking out and floating around the room in a properly wrapped panel, or causing safety issues, etc. Indeed the fiberglass will shed fibers to a certain degree as well. It's just that the mineral wool can, over time, start to sag a bit and look a little more lumpy than you get with fiberglass. But that doesn't mean it doesn't perform well. If you need acoustics treatment cheaply, and some of the other issues are less of a concern for you, then the mineral wool is the way to go. But, for longevity, durability, etc. the 705 is the better bet, but you have to pay a lot more for it. Those are considerations for each individual to weigh for themselves.

 

[Glenn Kuras]

It is a known fact that mineral wool doesn't "age" as nicely as the fiberglass.

(Sorry, Glenn, but this is indeed the truth! And my comments were not at all aimed at you or your products, since I was addressing the questions as to whether or not the RealTraps were "worth the cost", and also the differences between RealTraps panels and DIY panels. I didn't come here to attack your products or anyone else's products. This is indeed a thread about RealTraps products, so I hope you don't mind if I address it, thanks. )

sorry man but I totally mind that. Hey Real Traps are great and hands down you guys have done a nice job for the guy who has the money. Hats off to you.
BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT, mineral wool will not breat down in any way shape or form. That is your statement and is backed by no one else. If you have proof of this then please show it or (sorry to say it like this) SHUT UP. In fact mineral wool is used in million dollar studios, buildings, 10 million dollar ships and YES OUR PRODUCTS. I yet to find a customer (over 3 years now), that would EVER say our product sags or breaks down. Scott we have over 10,000 panels on the market, I am sure someone would speak up if this was the case. Note I have not chosen to say anything bad about Real Traps, but you have chosen to take some kind of "mineral sags and will not hang up over time" to make your own product look good. Does your boss Ethan know you are doing this?
I really think you need to BACK OFF just a bit.

Glenn

Glenn

 

[scottdru]

*sigh*

Glenn, I really do not understand why you insist on making this into a fight.

BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT, mineral wool will not breat down in any way shape or form. That is your statement and is backed by no one else.

Unfortunately, you are quite incorrect, sir. This is not something that I've just "made up" on my own. Indeed I could give you names of top studio designers who specify fiberglass in preference to mineral wool, and 705 in preference to 703 for the very reasons I've mentioned -- and, as I said before, these are some of the reasons Ethan and Doug chose 705 for use in RealTraps panels.

HOWEVER, what I suspect is happening here is that you are interpreting my statements in a FAR more extreme manner than I intended them, and perhaps I should clarify.

I'm not AT ALL trying to imply that broadband panels made from mineral wool will simply disintegrate into dust and become functionally impaired! I'm not talking about anything even CLOSE to that degree of breakdown. I'm talking about something that is more cosmetic than anything else.

Further, even 703 and 705 panels will break down to a certain degree if you beat them up enough. And yes, Virginia, 703 can sag over time too, e.g., if you are hanging it from the ceiling without a frame and a bit of extra support.

The facts are that fiberglass and mineral wool break down in different ways. Mineral wool, when it breaks down, tends to be a bit more "crumbly", and it can tend to get lumpy over periods of time. And even a brand new, fresh out the factory panel of the mineral wool has an observably different (rougher) surface texture from the surface texture of 703 or 705.

Of course, some of that texture can be made less noticeable by the use of a stiffer, heavier fabric, and there may be other implementation strategies that may make the potential cosmetic issues less noticeable (or perhaps even not noticeable at all). And, even so, whatever cosmetic issues may arise, this may not be as important for a lot of people.

In fact mineral wool is used in million dollar studios, buildings, 10 million dollar ships

Indeed it is! I didn't say that mineral wool was inappropriate for use in acoustics panels (or anything else, for that matter!).

The point I was making was that there are valid reasons why RealTraps products cost what they do, and one of those reasons is that 705 was chosen in large part because of its superior durability and its ability to retain a crisp look even after years of being bumped and moved around.

Ethan is a smart businessman (and indeed has built several successful businesses in his lifetime), and I can't see him choosing the more expensive 705 in preference to mineral wool for no good reason, especially if it would save him and/or his customers money. As a matter of fact, I've presented a number of product ideas to him that he has refused because it would be too expensive to manufacture in a way that would meet RealTraps quality standards. We could have done them more cheaply, but it wouldn't have been something we would be comfortable putting on the market because doing it in a way that would be economically feasible for us would not allow us to manufacture a product that meets the quality and durability standards that our business model requires.

Believe me, NOBODY is getting fabulously wealthy selling glass/mineral fiber-based broadband panels.

and YES OUR PRODUCTS.

I made no such comment specifically about your product, Glenn. YOU are the one who tied this whole issue to your product.

I yet to find a customer (over 3 years now), that would EVER say our product sags or breaks down. Scott we have over 10,000 panels on the market, I am sure someone would speak up if this was the case.

Or they might instead just come to us to buy the additional panels they need. Truth be told, we've had customers of yours come to us because they preferred the aesthetics of our panels to that of yours, and they were willing and able to pay the higher price. And, in the same way, I know that some of our customers have bought additional panels from you, because they needed more bass traps and they could not afford to purchase enough of ours to get the kind of coverage they needed. And I know that there are happy customers on both sides who have made the switch to suit their individual needs. And THAT is the most important thing, don't you think?

I think we both agree that there are pros and cons for both your panels and ours, and these are things that people can (and should) weigh for themselves. But, even so, this thread wasn't about the differences between your traps and ours until you chose to make it about that. YOU made the choice to step into a thread that was not about you and make it about you. And, unfortunately, the end result is that it makes us BOTH look bad.

Scott we have over 10,000 panels on the market, I am sure someone would speak up if this was the case.

Can you guarantee they won't notice any cosmetic degradation in your panels in 10 years? 15 years? 20 years? Do you have enough years of experience working with 703, 705 and their mineral wool equivalents that you can be absolutely certain that your panels will still look as crisp as the day they left the factory after many years of use in a commercial studio where you have drummers like me around to bump into them, or let a stick fly into them, etc.?

Glenn, I wouldn't have even brought up these issues had you not come into this thread and taken things I said about the differences between RealTraps panels and DIY panels ENTIRELY out of context (and entirely personally) and made this all about you and your products. That was NOT even remotely my purpose for commenting in this thread, and I was only addressing comments made about RealTraps products and DIY products. There was no reason for you to attack me here in this thread and make the accusations you did.

But, unfortunately, you kinda forced my hand by digging into me publicly and putting me in a very uncomfortable, defensive position when you assigned meaning and motive to my comments that was not even remotely in line with what I was thinking when I wrote my comments in the first couple of posts here.

Note I have not chosen to say anything bad about Real Traps, but you have chosen to take some kind of "mineral sags and will not hang up over time" to make your own product look good.

Once again, I did not, in any of the posts to which you took issue, attack or criticise your products. And indeed the only mentions I made of your products were positive comments.

Glenn, you have done a great job of coming up with a way to put panels on the market that are EXTREMELY affordable, and perform very well indeed. Thanks to you, there are no longer any cost prohibitions for ANYONE to be able to have high performance bass trapping for their room without having to build it themselves. That is not an insignificant achievement. Every small room needs broadband/bass trapping to have an acoustic environment that allows people to hear an even remotely accurate representation of what their systems can recreate. And I think it's great that anyone who wants to have real, high performance bass traps can get them.

And I'll also mention that you are known for being a great person to deal with personally and professionally -- and indeed that has been my experience with you too.

sorry man but I totally mind that. Hey Real Traps are great and hands down you guys have done a nice job for the guy who has the money. Hats off to you.

OK, well then . . . if you are going to get bent out of shape about me saying something about mineral wool that I know to be true (even without any reference to your product), then perhaps Ethan and I should get bent out of shape if you ever so much as mention or acknowledge anything about our panels being more expensive than yours? (Hopefully you get my point?)

Does your boss Ethan know you are doing this?
I really think you need to BACK OFF just a bit.

Dude . . . c'mon man . . . is that kind of thing REALLY necessary?

Glenn, this is not the first time you took something I said on a forum in a way that was COMPLETELY different from what I intended and *chosen* to take offense. And, to be honest, I'm often caught completely off guard when this happens, because I've always liked you, and I've always thought we got along well.

I would really appreciate it if you would call me on the phone or email me for clarification before you dig into me publicly for something you took out of context and mistakenly assumed was an attack on you (including the last thing you got all up in my grille about that had nothing to do with acoustics or your products, and was not even remotely intended as a slight toward you).

You have my email address, and you have my phone number. It's not difficult to reach me directly. And it would save us both a lot stress and embarrassment, not to mention saving other forum members a good deal of annoyance. There's already WAY too much of this kind of angst in the acoustics industry, and that's largely why I don't post in forums so often these days, because I'm REALLY not interested in getting involved in the silly, childish cat fights that go on in the forums. I just don't have time or energy to put toward that kind of negativity.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

@ mtrycrafts: I'm sorry your thread got pulled so far off topic with this silliness. Glenn and I need to take this off-line and hash it out between us, instead of doing it publicly here on the forums. But I did want to make my meaning and intentions clear since there were accusations made against me.

 

[Glenn Kuras]

I would really appreciate it if you would call me on the phone or email me for clarification before you dig into me publicly for something you took out of context and mistakenly assumed was an attack on you (including the last thing you got all up in my grille about that had nothing to do with acoustics or your products, and was not even remotely intended as a slight toward you).

I did email you (and cced Ethan) which you did not respond to. Guess you just thought it was better to write to me here.

That was a very nice post, but you still have not given me any proof that mineral wool will break down or become lumpy over time. For every pro that picks using OC products I can point to others that use mineral wool. Sorry Scott but you are not a expert on the subject, so maybe you should just leave the whole mineral wool subject alone.





Have a good one Scott.








Glenn

 

[ParadigmDawg]

I love it when two vendors fight on the forum; makes me look for a third vendor to buy items from...

 

[WmAx]

I love it when two vendors fight on the forum; makes me look for a third vendor to buy items from...

Ready Acoustics has some very nice looking panels. I have some and I was impressed by the quality of the materials(it uses a high grade microfibre suede - similar in appearance and feel to the kind you find on high quality furniture(as opposed to the thinned type you find on cheaper grade furniture)). The frames are rather nice/impressive as well.

-Chris

 

[Glenn Kuras]

Hey guys,

Really I am sorry about this as this should not be a fight, but only trying to clearify about mineral wool. I guess I went way over board as from the posts above make that clear (Greg and WmAx).

Scott, can you and I join hands and sing a love song together?

In closing,

Real Traps does have a great product, as I have seen it first hand. I would go as far as to say if I did not own GIK I would buy from them. Ethan is a great guy and call him a friend.

Sorry guys if I got upset. Life is way to short.

Glenn

 

[mike c]

great! now can you reply to my email about package dims and weight now